A Christmas memory

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Barbara Harper

Susan at By Grace shared a Christmas memory last week, and that started my wheels turning, so I thought I’d do the same. I’ve shared this particular one before, but maybe some have not seen it or have forgotten it.

My husband and I were married Dec. 21. We didn’t have a honeymoon — we could not afford one and didn’t have time because we were both still college students. I had “crammed four years into five” as the saying goes and was in my second senior year, so I only had three classes left for my last semester.

We spent our first night in a hotel in Houston and planned to go back to my folks house the next day to pack up my things in a U-Haul and then start the drive back to SC. But something went wrong with our car and we ended up having to stay overnight. We couldn’t afford a second night in a hotel room, so we stayed with my folks…and let me tell you, it felt very awkward bringing my new husband into my old bedroom at the ol’ home place on just our second night together!

We started out the next day, I believe, and must’ve stayed overnight somewhere in-between because we got to SC about 11 p.m. Christmas Eve. We were renting a furnished mobile home from one of our college professors. We hadn’t seen it yet: at the time we talked with him, the trailers he had were occupied but he was in the process of buying another one and said we could rent it. So this trailer and location were new to him as well. We called him when we got into town and he took us over to the trailer, showed us around, gave us the keys, and invited us to a Christmas banquet that the university was having the next day.

We unpacked just what we needed for the night and fell into bed. First thing the next morning, Christmas morning, we were startled awake by very loud and insistent pounding on our door. My husband scrambled himself together enough to open the door when what should his wondering eyes behold but a short grey-haired man — with no beard, no red suit, and a decidedly unjolly expression.

It turned out to be the man who owned the mobile home park. He had not been told that anyone new was moving in, and furthermore, he did not allow renters. He was very upset. I don’t know how the transaction had occurred between our landlord and the previous owners without taking into account the need to contact the landlord of the mobile home park — maybe they each understood the other was going to do that. I don’t remember exactly what Jim told him: something to the effect that we were sorry, we didn’t know, we’d have our landlord contact him.

When we went to the Christmas banquet we explained the situation, and the professor met with the trailer park owner and worked things out so that we were allowed to stay. So we had two landlords, one for the trailer and one for the space we were renting.

It was the nicest trailer park I had ever seen, with only fourteen trailers, a good amount of space between trailers, and a lot of trees. The owner was a shuffling little old man who wasn’t a physical threat to anyone, but he had an air of authority about him and drove through through the park several times a day to check on things. Looking at the situation from his point of view, his reaction was quite understandable, though it was disconcerting to us to find out that someone was very upset with us and we might be kicked out of our first place to live on Christmas day. But once that was settled we had a very amiable relationship for the six years we lived there.

I had a little two-foot-high aluminum tree that had belonged to my grandfather, and we hit the after-Christmas sales the next day for a few decorations and celebrated our first Christmas together a few days late. I don’t remember anything else about that first Christmas except for one pair of ornaments we bought.

The brown-haired boy represented Jim, and the blond girl represented me, and they were made of wax. But one year they got a little melted up in the attic. I couldn’t even get them out of the plastic bags because they were stuck. I don’t know why I haven’t thrown them away. Well, yes I do: I’m sentimental. I put all my Christmas candles in a box in a storage closest now so they don’t melt any more up in the attic, and I keep these in with them.

Despite that inauspicious beginning, we’re coming up on our 33rd Christmas together! Thankfully I think all the rest of them were relatively happy, as far as I can remember: the only one other one I remember having any problems was one when all five of us were sick as dogs. All the rest contained some combination of family, food, gifts, and most important, faith in the One whose birth we celebrate that day and who came to offer salvation to all who would believe.

What does it mean to magnify the Lord?

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Barbara Harper

During the brief four years we home-schooled, one of the biggest helps was a great support group. Qne of their activities was a monthly meeting where we sometimes had guest speakers (my favorite was Booker T. Washington’s granddaughter — she gave quite a fascinating talk). Sometimes the kids did activities, like an annual talent show; sometimes members of the group would speak about their work or hobbies.

One time my husband, whose job title for many years was Research Microscopist and who collects, buys, and sells microscopes, spoke about microscopes and brought a few for kids to look at whatever they wanted to under the microscope. He also spoke about Psalm 34:3: “O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.” He pointed out that we don’t make God bigger than He is: He’s already so big we can’t comprehend it. But we focus on Him, bringing out thoughts of His greatness.

I’m rereading Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room: Daily Family Devotions for Advent by Nancy Guthrie, and the selection for today comes from Mary’s song after learning that she will be the mother of the Messiah. “And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour” (Luke 1:46-47). Guthrie explores the concept of what it means to magnify God and says:

The truth is, we can never fully take in or understand God’s greatness. But we can magnify Him. We magnify God not by making Him bigger than He truly is, but by making Him greater in our thoughts, in our affections, in our memories, and in our expectations. We magnify Him by having higher, larger, and truer thoughts of Him. We magnify Him by praising Him and telling others about His greatness so they can have bigger thoughts about Him, too.

I looked up the meaning of “magnify” in Dictionary.com, and part of the definition is: “to cause to seem greater or more important; attribute … importance to; to intensify; dramatize; heighten; to extol; praise.”

Mary magnified Him out of joy and gladness. The psalmist (Psalm 64 and 69) magnified Him out of deep need and affliction. They both speak of deliverance and answered prayer and expectation. The KJV speaks once of God magnifying Himself: “Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 38:23).

I don’t think God “needs” us to magnify Him: He doesn’t have an ego that needs stroking. Even when He magnified Himself, the purpose was that others would know who He was. But we need to magnify Him. It’s so easy to magnify the cares of this world, our needs, our weaknesses, our duties. That gets discouraging, distracting, defeating. But when we magnify Him, we see Him as He truly is, we remember how great and good He is, how He has strength He will provide us in our weakness, how He can easily take care of whatever need we have. The more we praise Him, the more rightly we relate to Him, then the more we praise Him and testify of Him to others, so they can focus on Him and see for themselves how great He is and how He can meet their needs as well. The more we magnify Him, the more we worship Him.

I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.
This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs.
The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God.
Psalm 69:30-32.

Book Review: The Christmas Dog

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Barbara Harper

Betty Kowalski is having trouble obeying the Bible’s command to love her neighbor. Her neighbor isn’t making it any easier, with a heated dispute over a fence between their properties, a pile of rubbish in the yard, including her former neighbor’s prized pink toilet, remodeling noise all hours of the day and night, and now his dirty, pesky dog doing his business on her dogwood tree.
Add to that an unexpected visit from a troubled granddaughter, an upset in her son’s family, and a promise to help with a friend’s 50th anniversary celebration, and Betty has her hands full.

Christmas books can sometimes be overly sentimental, but The Christmas Dog by Melody Carlson was a delightful surprise. I figured I knew where things were headed with the dog, given the book’s title, but Betty’s transition from curmudgeon to caring Christian was both heart-warming and convicting.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

A Perfect Christmas

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Barbara Harper

This is a repost from a couple of years ago. I came across it in my archives a day or two ago and it was a good reminder to me.

(Photo courtesy of the stock.xchng.)

Most of us have a vision in our minds of the perfect Christmas: family gathered around, a clean and sparkling house, a beautifully adorned Christmas tree with piles of lovingly chosen presents underneath, a feast for the eyes and the table, scents of roasting turkey or ham, pumpkin pies, apple cider, everyone marvelously getting along like the end of a made-for-TV movie.

But what if that’s not reality this year?

What if one member is in prison? Or overseas or across the country? Or in heaven?

What if a lost job or a major medical expense has led to a depleted bank account and bare cupboards?

Is Christmas then ruined?

Let’s go back to that first Christmas.

Mary and Joseph were alone and away from home and family in a strange city. They did not have a beautifully decorated house: they did not even have a hotel room. The only place someone had available for them was a stable. The only scents of the season were those of animals in a barn. Mary, as a young, first-time mother, did not have the blessing of a modern hospital and sanitary conditions, a skilled nursing staff and childbirth training. Giving birth was painful and messy. Joseph would have been out of his element helping a woman deliver a baby, and perhaps he was dismayed or frustrated that he could not provide better for her in general, especially in her moment of need. And after the blessed relief of a healthy child safely born, there was little acknowledgment of who this Child was besides the shepherds, Simeon and Anna, and, later on, the wise men. Soon they would face the danger of a king bent on killing the Child in their care and the loss of reputation Mary would endure her whole life as many thought her Child was illegitimate, and soon the ominous promise that a sword would pierce through Mary’s own soul.

What did they have then, that lonely, uncomfortable, smelly night? They had the Child of promise. A Child whom they were told to name Jesus, which means “Jehovah saves,” whose very name is a promise, who would reconcile them to God by taking care of their greatest need, who would “save His people from their sins.” They had the realization that, as the angel told Mary when first delivering the news that she would bear a child though she was a virgin, this Child was the long-awaited and longed-for Messiah, the King, the Son of the Highest. What cause for joy and wonder! They had no idea how it would all work out. But they had the promise, and because of the promise, they had hope.

It’s certainly not wrong to enjoy a decorated tree, presents, wonderful food, and family gathered. But we can celebrate Christmas even all of those elements are missing or less than ideal…because we can celebrate in our own hearts and with those around us that same promise, that same hope. If that’s all we have this Christmas…that’s more than enough.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Barbara Harper

So much to be thankful for —

God, all of His wonderful attributes, His lovingkindness towards us in making us, providing for us, sending His Son to die for us, loving us still when we fail..

His Word to instruct, guide, encourage us

Family near and far

Friends old and new

The fellowship of believers

Food, shelter, safety, necessities of life

“Extra” blessings of books, music, chocolate, the Internet, senses, useful occupations and enjoyable diversions

More blessings than we can count…

Though we are to give thanks every day in all things, it’s nice to have a special time of emphasis to remind us of it and revive thankfulness in our lives.

I hope you have a wonderful day with loved ones and good food and a time of pondering and thanking God for all He has provided.

More Thanksgiving reading:

Thanksgiving devotional reading.
Thanksgiving Bible Study
Some Thanksgiving quotes are here.
More Thanksgiving quotes are here.
Thanksgiving “funnies” are here and A “Redneck Thanksgiving” is here.
Thanksgiving poems are here and More Thanksgiving poems are here.

Thank You to All Our Veterans

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Barbara Harper

The following has been attributed to Reverend Denis Edward O’Brian, but he says the author is unknown. I originally received it via the Good Clean Fun mailing list of Tom Ellsworth.

WHAT IS A VETERAN?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them, a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg – or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can’t tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet?

A vet is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.

A vet is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is overshadowed by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th Parallel.

A vet is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

A vet is the POW who went away one person and came back another – or didn’t come back at all.

A vet is the drill instructor who has never seen combat – but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account punks and gang members into marines, airmen, sailors, soldiers and coast guardsmen, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.

A vet is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

A vet is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

A vet is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.

A vet is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket – palsied now and aggravatingly slow – who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

A vet is an ordinary and yet extraordinary human being, a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

A vet is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say, “Thank You.” That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Those two little words mean a lot … “THANK YOU”.

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

It has been quite an eventful week! Here are some of my favorite parts of it:

1. Freon. Our AC wasn’t working correctly, and the AC guy was able to come out before the weekend to fill it up. We were about half empty, so he suspected a leak, but we decided to just wait and see. Well — by Wed. night the AC was acting up again, and he can’t come until Friday morning. So we’ve been trying to operate without AC. It’s not too bad if we stay still under a ceiling fan, but trying to get anything else done is hard. I think I might have a good reason to ask my dear hubby to take me out to dinner tonight 🙂 (I’m writing this on Thursday afternoon.)(Update: he did. :-)) I’m hoping it is just a leak in the AC but it is possible it might need to be replaced.

2. Ladies’ Birthday Party. Our church did this last year as well, having one celebration for all the ladies of the church. We signed up by month of birth and then had to get together with others at our table to make table settings, centerpieces, etc. The months that did not have as many people joined together (Jan. and Dec. were together, April and May, etc.). They had games, door prizes, and of course birthday cake.

Here are some of the tables (please forgive the picture quality — I forgot my camera and had to use my cell phone).:

August had a nautical theme:

February’s table was sweet:

I loved the use of the little shoes for place card holders.

October/November went classy:

So did December/January:

The winners were April/May:

So cute! It was a fun time.

I probably should have made this section into a separate post…

3. Rain. We hadn’t had any for about two weeks.

4. Grandma’s 84th birthday. One time she thought she was 100, another time she thought she was turning 53. 🙂 Oh well — she enjoyed herself and her family got to show her some love in a special way.

5. Independence Day, for several reasons. I’m so thankful to live in a free country, even though it has its flaws. It was nice to have a day off — hubby grilled chicken, burgers, and turkey kielbasa and even went to the store for the food, and Mittu made potato salad, cookies, and chocolate covered strawberries. All I did was open a can of baked beans and rinse off some carrots. 🙂 And then there were fireworks. Last year we went and saw some professional ones, but when we came back we saw that our neighbors had shot off multitudes. So this year we decided to pull up lawn chairs out front and watch theirs. It was really neat for a good while there — until one of the fireworks fell over and started coming at us and caught the grass on fire in several places.

Thankfully that is by our shed rather than the house. Thankfully the neighbors with the fireworks had a fire extinguisher — I guess that would a bonus fave! We had hoped that the bit of rain we’d had earlier in the week would have relieved some of the dryness, but I guess it was not enough.

Hope you’ve had a great week and will have a good weekend!

Happy Independence Day!

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Barbara Harper

“Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.

We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.” Ronald Reagan

Dad’s Job Description

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Barbara Harper

Subject: JOB DESCRIPTION
Position: DAD

Long-term team players needed for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in faraway cities. Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES

~ Must provide on-site training in basic life skills, such as nose blowing. Must have strong skills in negotiating, conflict resolution and crisis management. Ability to suture flesh wounds a plus.

~ Must be able to think out of the box but not lose track of the box, because you most likely will need it for a school project.

~ Must reconcile petty cash disbursements and be proficient in managing budgets and resources fairly, unless you want to hear, “He got more than me!” for the rest of your life.

~ Must be able to drive motor vehicles safely under loud and adverse conditions while simultaneously practicing above mentioned skills in conflict resolution.

~ Must be able to choose your battles wisely and then stick to your guns.

~ Must be able to withstand criticism, such as “You don’t know anything.”

~ Must be willing to be hated at least temporarily, until someone needs $5 to go skating.

~ Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly.

~ Must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat, in case this time the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf.

~ Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers.

~ Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys and battery-operated devices.

~ Must be willing to be indispensable one minute, an embarrassment the next.

~ Must have a highly energetic entrepreneurial spirit, because fund-raiser will be your middle name.

~ Must have a diverse knowledge base, so as to answer questions on the fly such as “What makes the wind move?” or “Why can’t we just stop all wars?”

~ Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.

~ Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product.

~ Other responsibilities include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT AND PROMOTION

Virtually none. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you. One possible promotion is to “Grandpa,” but that’s really a totally different job.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE

None required, unfortunately. On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION

You pay them, offering frequent raises and bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent. When you die, you give them whatever is left. The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS

While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered, the job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth and free hugs for life, if you play your cards right.

(Author Unknown)

Thanks to my father, step-father, and husband who took on the challenge!

Happy Father’s Day to them and all the dads out there!